


That One Time Kinkphobia Blindsided Me

by LoontenantDucktective



Category: No Fandom
Genre: Essays, Fandom, Kink, Kinkphobia, Meta, Nonfiction, Rants, i just have a lot of feelings, i’m also hurt, just miss me with your tone policing ok, yes i am angry thanks for asking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-17 23:20:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28608168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoontenantDucktective/pseuds/LoontenantDucktective
Summary: I wrote this after a bad experience with kinkphobia. I wanted to get a few things off my chest, especially in the hopes that it might make someone in a similar situation feel less alone.
Kudos: 2





	That One Time Kinkphobia Blindsided Me

**Author's Note:**

> I am autistic; I have difficulty with sequencing and clarity in my writing, and I can sound pedantic. I do not have access to a trusted beta at the moment, though, so I hope it comes across.
> 
> I shouldn’t have to say this, but in case you need to hear it: The term “kink”, as it is used here, does NOT include ANY criminal or nonconsensual predilections. 
> 
> Please be civil in the comments; this is my first work in over a decade, I’m terrified, and this topic is a sensitive one for me.

I was trying to get back into Fandom. 

Then, a few months ago, I was accosted by an anti who seriously fucked me up. They tried their damnedest to make me feel like kinksters are all predators waiting to happen, and that the only way we can keep people safe from our sick twisted selves is to keep our faces shut and pretend like we don’t exist, and to perpetuate our shame and self-hate. Without realizing it, this person tried to “educate” me that my very existence was nothing more than a sexually predacious lie.

What really messed me up about this encounter was that this was fandom space, and the person was also part of fandom, and they genuinely believed themselves to be progressive and kind. Their profile overtly rejected “antis and radfems” and they were themselves a stated kinkster. This person had no idea just how virulently kinkphobic their beliefs were, and shared them from an attitude of enlightenment. They even claimed some professional background in these issues. Their tone indicated that they expected no argument or offense in response to their assertions. Wtf are we doing as a community that anyone could uncritically internalize this kind of tripe, and never be challenged on it?

I came to AO3 to rant about this because 1) fandom is the only place I have ever felt even remotely safe to express kink (I am hardly alone in this), and 2) I do not see anyone (kinkster or queer or otherwise) making the counterarguments that desperately need to be made, or indeed even recognizing these obvious and common shapes of kinkphobia when they see it. It’s just not even being talked about. 

So today I’m gonna talk about it. Here are some of the finer points of what this person believed, and why they are kinkphobic bullshit:

-That firsthand accounts by kinksters of their own life experience is worthless, suspect, and valid only when sanctioned by vanillas. Specifically, if we dare to voice life experience that contradicts what they’re teaching about kink in, for example, your basic Psych 101 course, or the current version of the DSM, then this proves that we actually do not remember the trajectory of our lives correctly and our testimonies are therefore worthless. 

This is so important to understand, because it pre-emptively allows a kinkphobic radfem, or even a hateful doctor or therapist, to cast themselves as arbiters of what is and is not the “truth” of kinkster experience. This is a longstanding way of silencing queer voices, by tacitly asserting that a queer voice cannot be trusted as speaking Truth because it is queer. Unbelievable bigotry—that it could be embraced uncritically by anyone queer seriously alarms me.

This co-opting of Narrative Truth allows anyone to draw any hateful conclusion they like, akin to those who used to tell gay people their desires must be rooted in CSA, whether or not they had remembered such experiences in their past (happened to my Dad!). “Oh you must have been molested,” said the Helpful Homophobe, “otherwise you wouldn’t be gay. You just don’t remember it.” What a mindfuck. Don’t tell me you know my life better than me.

-That kink is 100% sexual, inseperable from sex, and therefore even discussing it is a nonconsensual sex act (this is a purity culture POV that has long been used to silence all aspects of LGBT culture, see: gay parades being considered “obscene”, and the ubiquitous “I don’t care what two dudes wanna do behind closed doors, i just don’t want to hear about it” argument against coming out, along with the creation of high school GSAs being equated with school-sanctioned child molestation). 

Nobody feels sexually assaulted when some bro proposes to his girlfriend at a baseball game, y’all, even though they are presumed to have a sexual relationship. This tacit allowance for explicitly sexual relationships to be read as non-sexual when it’s convenient is about power. It’s a mark of privilege, and it is one that is routinely denied to queer people to keep them silent and invisible. It also serves to minimize and devalue our selfhood by compressing our full and complex identities into being “just sex”. Kink is not 100% sexual any more than being gay or straight is 100% sexual. I know this because I live it every single day. Stop telling me what I feel. Seriously.

-That kinksters just like to see themselves as Special Flowers, and any coming out is just exhibitionism and/or attention-seeking behavior. According to this person (and others I have encountered), kinksters are not different from, and do not experience the world differently than, a romantically normative person who just likes to, say, be bitten during sex sometimes, or who experiments with spanking here and there. I have even been handed the “everybody’s a little kinky if you squint” line by friends trying to soothe my sense of alienation.

And yeah, these semi-kinky people exist, but they’re not me. I experience kink differently in that it has always been a core aspect of my selfhood. We might use the same word, but only because we haven’t talked about this stuff enough yet to invent an effective vocabulary to distinguish someone like me from someone who does not see kink as part of their essential identity. That does not mean I don’t exist. I spent my life in terrified hiding. Don’t tell me what I am. 

-That kink is, as Dan Savage has incorrectly stated, “about what you like” as opposed to (legitimate) sexuality, which is “about who you like”. With all due respect to Mr Savage, more bullshittier bullshit has never been spoken. This is akin to reducing gay men to “just liking dicks”, and it’s just as hateful and harmful to reduce kinksters in the same way. Doesn’t make sense to you? You say your kink is just about sex? Cool story, bro. I guess my life experience is different from yours! My kink has always been about who I like, always. Don’t fucking tell me what I feel, Susan.

-That kinksters experience no special shame or harm from their social neglect; that being left to discover themselves and navigate their boundaries alone, without the vocabulary to discuss themselves or their needs, is not harmful and does not result in significant psychosocial impairment, isolation, trauma, or shame. That our exclusion from sex ed that could be helpful to us was actually for our own protection and the protection of others. I know this to be fabulously untrue because I fucking lived it.

-That kinksters are incapable of intellectually separating sexual and non-sexual contexts as it concerns their kinks. To me, this was the real kicker, the thing that fucked up my mental health for a good while, that a queer-positive person could embrace this mindset. 

I remember a thread once (unrelated) accusing a longtime writer of sickfics of only liking their spouse because said spouse was chronically ill. I remember this thread because it gave me nightmares—almost no one chimed in to defend the accused even though the absurdity of this argument is surely plain as day. Do we fire gynecologists who are sexually attracted to vaginas? Do we remove AMAB babies from homes in which a parent is sexually attracted to penises (again this was a very common argument against gay parenthood—wtf y’all, how does no one remember this?)

No, because unless proven otherwise, we generally assume those with normative sexualities to be 1) only attracted to adults, 2) capable of intellectually separating sexual and non-sexual contexts, and 3) interested in obtaining consent. For kinksters, as for many LGBT folks, none of these assumptions are made. (In fact, usually the assumption made is quite the opposite). How is this not recognized for the outrageous bigotry it truly is?

And let’s not forget that all of the above are hardly true for every sexually normative person; vanillas commit sexual assault all the damn time. But what we can say is that a kinkster must behave as though they are sexually normative if they don’t want to be interpreted as inherently criminal, even in otherwise progressive contexts. And it should go without saying here, but I know my kink does not make me inherently a sexual criminal, because again, this is my life and I know how I feel. And goddammit, Susan, I am just as entitled to the benefit of the doubt as anyone with a typical sexuality, ok?

I don’t have a great conclusion here. This is just meant to be a window into my thoughts and feelings, for whatever that’s worth, and a plea for a little less thoughtlessness. I might be weird, but I’m still a person, and so are others like me.


End file.
